Manchester University Press
6 Digital representations of habitus
Abstract
Chapter 6 fully embraces the ‘ethnosemiotic’ analytical approach and takes a small corpus of London-French migrant blogs as its empirical basis. Developments in the migrants’ selfhood, belonging and positioning are explored using archived snapshots captured between 2009 and 2014. Through a granular multimodal lens, which re-adopts the habitat-habituation-habit triad, the chapter posits that rather than signifying a ‘cleft habitus’, visual, textual and/or typographical transformations common to the blogs reflect a collective London-French habitus that gestures towards hybridity. It acknowledges the materiality of the digital and the relational nature of London-French online/on-land experience, together with the predominance of women, who repurpose their blogs in a technomaterialist, xenofeminist turn. Despite challenges posed by the web-archival methodology, the chapter confirms the persistence of premigration habits identified on-land, alongside habituation to postmigration practices, including the culinary and cultural. As visual ‘geo-narratives’, the green and blue spaces depicted emerge as central to diasporic well-being and legitimate the normative selection of London as a long-term place of residence over Paris, as well as substantiating on-land research findings. The chapter argues that home and belonging in the postmigration space are presented in playful, optimistic terms, which projects an image of migration as a positive, if romanticised, move. The bloggers’ translanguaging practices are seen both to reproduce and transcend territorialisation, while coded ingroup iconography sheds light on migrant embedding and interpersonal relationships with pre- and postmigration communities. The affective atmosphere of the London-French blogosphere is, the chapter concludes, increasingly hybrid and as such mirrors participants’ on-land experience.
Abstract
Chapter 6 fully embraces the ‘ethnosemiotic’ analytical approach and takes a small corpus of London-French migrant blogs as its empirical basis. Developments in the migrants’ selfhood, belonging and positioning are explored using archived snapshots captured between 2009 and 2014. Through a granular multimodal lens, which re-adopts the habitat-habituation-habit triad, the chapter posits that rather than signifying a ‘cleft habitus’, visual, textual and/or typographical transformations common to the blogs reflect a collective London-French habitus that gestures towards hybridity. It acknowledges the materiality of the digital and the relational nature of London-French online/on-land experience, together with the predominance of women, who repurpose their blogs in a technomaterialist, xenofeminist turn. Despite challenges posed by the web-archival methodology, the chapter confirms the persistence of premigration habits identified on-land, alongside habituation to postmigration practices, including the culinary and cultural. As visual ‘geo-narratives’, the green and blue spaces depicted emerge as central to diasporic well-being and legitimate the normative selection of London as a long-term place of residence over Paris, as well as substantiating on-land research findings. The chapter argues that home and belonging in the postmigration space are presented in playful, optimistic terms, which projects an image of migration as a positive, if romanticised, move. The bloggers’ translanguaging practices are seen both to reproduce and transcend territorialisation, while coded ingroup iconography sheds light on migrant embedding and interpersonal relationships with pre- and postmigration communities. The affective atmosphere of the London-French blogosphere is, the chapter concludes, increasingly hybrid and as such mirrors participants’ on-land experience.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vi
- Series editor’s foreword viii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Looking back 29
- 2 Looking in 61
- 3 The imperceptible force of habituation 94
- 4 Adopting the habits of the London field 126
- 5 Looking beyond 158
- 6 Digital representations of habitus 194
- Conclusion 231
- Epilogue 238
- Appendix 252
- References 255
- Index 280
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vi
- Series editor’s foreword viii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Looking back 29
- 2 Looking in 61
- 3 The imperceptible force of habituation 94
- 4 Adopting the habits of the London field 126
- 5 Looking beyond 158
- 6 Digital representations of habitus 194
- Conclusion 231
- Epilogue 238
- Appendix 252
- References 255
- Index 280
